I stared at the
gun in my hand before transferring my gaze to the dead author on the floor. She
deserved to die. It was the only way to stop her from beginning her next
romance with yet another car chase.

One approach to
first lines is to begin with a bang—a startling event that captures a reader’s
or viewer’s attention—such as an abduction or a car chase. Or it can be the
literal bang of a gunshot. This type of opening is often used with action
adventures, but it isn’t limited to that genre.

For an example
from literary fiction, consider the opening paragraph from The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (as translated by DavidWyllie).

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled
dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.He
lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see
his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The
bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment.
His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved
about helplessly as he looked.

If waking up to
discover you’ve been changed into a giant insect isn’t a startling event, then
nothing is. The bang in The Metamorphosis
is both unexpected and gigantic.

But the bang
doesn’t have to be big to work. Here is the beginning of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.That is, my feet are in it; the rest of
me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the
tea-cosy. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing
smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is
any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have
never sat before can be inspiring—I wrote my very best poem while sitting on
the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my
poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.

In these two
examples, the first line is the one that creates the bang. And fortunately for
the reader, the rest of the paragraph keeps the interest going.

So why doesn’t
every story start with a bang? Because it doesn’t always work. Like every other
type of opening, this approach has its pitfalls.

First, it’s too easy
to start with an event that has nothing to do with the story. I’ve read many
manuscripts and even some published books that fall into this trap. Somebody
told the writer to start with a thrilling adventure, so the writer forces a car
chase or a murder into the opening of a gentle romance. Unfortunately, it
doesn’t fit.

But, you may ask,
what about Raiders of the Lost Ark?
Doesn’t that start with an unrelated adventure? Yes and no. The action sequence
that begins the movie is not part of the actual story line, but it is related.
First, it tells us something about Indiana Jones’ character. Second, it is
consistent with and sets the mood for what follows. For these reasons and
possibly others, it works. The car chase or murder that begins the gentle
romance can’t claim those connections.

The second pitfall
of opening with a bang is the temptation to begin the story in the wrong place.
I was writing a women’s fiction novel about a woman who idolized her father
until she discovered that he was a swindler. She doesn’t forgive him until she
thinks he was killed in a car crash. The accident was the most dramatic event
in the story, so I tried to start there. Unfortunately, I would have had to
tell most of the story as a flashback. A few writers can pull it off, but I’m
not one of them.

If your story
allows you to start with a bang naturally, then do it. But if not, there are
plenty of other choices.

Next week we’ll
talk about using the first lines to introduce an intriguing character.